Allowable expenses

Andrew Wright & Co. can provide assistance to self-employed people in the Wakefield area on allowable expenses and other tax and financial issues...

We are often asked: "What expenses can I claim now that I am self employed?".

The rather glib answer is "Anything that relates to your business". Whilst this is generally true, there are some expenses which, although genuine business expenses, are specifically excluded from tax relief, such as:

Business entertaining including the VAT; however input VAT on business entertaining of overseas customers is recoverable

Charitable subscriptions and donations, except to small local charities

Political donations

Costs and Fines for breaking the law

Loan Capital Repayments

Drawings, including payments for tax and National Insurance contributions

Depreciation; capital expenditure is subject to the capital allowance regime

Expenditure on plant and machinery for most small businesses is likely to be covered by the annual investment allowance of up to £1 million.

April 2013 saw the introduction of a new cash basis for calculating taxable income for small unincorporated businesses. One of the measures allows any unincorporated business to choose to use flat rate expenses for the following items of business expenditure:

Fixed allowances for business mileage

Expenses relating to business use of the home

Adjustment for private use of business premises

This information is not exhaustive. Please contact us if you have any queries about the allowability of specific expenses.

If you are self-employed in the Wakefield area and would like advice on claiming allowable expenses, contact Andrew Wright & Co..

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In the UK the term accountant is not protected by law, therefore anyone can call themselves an accountant. Being an ACCA member firm means that you can have confidence that we are qualified to handle your finances, help your business grow and that we are regulated by the leading accountancy body in the world. The ACCA Qualification provides a wide-ranging skill-set, which means we are trained to provide both strategic and operational input and adapt quickly to your changing management accounting needs.

Unqualified persons who have trained for book-keeping or tax only simply aren't able to provide these other services as their skillset is too narrow.